


There's Power In Having Nothing To Lose

by absoluteMastard



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Possession, background lonelyeyes that gets thwarted, canon-typical emotional abuse, jonah magnus eat shit challenge, mentions of eye trauma, peace was never an option, that means you are the demon now, the inherent eroticism of being an absolute nuisance, when the demon possesses you and youre stuck in the mindspace with them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:40:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22779625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absoluteMastard/pseuds/absoluteMastard
Summary: "I regret possessing you.""Then get rid of me, pussy."
Relationships: Elias Bouchard & Jonah Magnus
Comments: 64
Kudos: 354
Collections: Real Elias Bouchard Fics





	There's Power In Having Nothing To Lose

“Wh—what, why can’t I move? I’m not the one doing that.”

“I’m behind the wheel now, Elias.”

“Who is that?!”

“Don’t ask questions you already have the answer to, Elias. It’s irritating, and I will not spoonfeed you the answers you are capable of putting together yourself.”

“I don’t—wait, James Wright? No, that was some fucked up nightmare. I smoked too much before going to bed.”

“I’m afraid denial won’t help you. I suggest you start to process your new situation. Congratulations on the promotion, by the way.”

Elias Bouchard felt like he was looking through binoculars that he had no control over. It was disorienting, if he didn’t feel so disconnected from his body in that moment, he’d have felt nauseous. He saw himself reflected in the mirror leaning against the wall in his flat as he leaned in close to examine his face. He looked roughed up, to say the least. The collar of his shirt was flecked with bloodstains, his arms showed rings of bruises where he suddenly remembered being strapped down. He was red in the face like he’d been blasted with pepper spray and might start crying again at any minute. His body moved in closer to observe his face at a closer angle. It was barely noticeable until he was close, but at the outer corner of his eyelid, he spied the hairline of a cut—symmetrical on each side. The skin was pink and puffy along the scab, likely to go away as it healed better. Elias’ body pulled down the eyelid in grotesque observation of the rest. His eyes were severely bloodshot, almost drawing attention away from that brilliant ocean blue.

“My eyes are grey-blue.” Elias said. His lips didn’t move in the mirror.

“Yes.” His reflection replied, after a pause. It was in his own voice this time, not the one previously echoing in his head.

“These are… blue-blue.”

His reflection frowned at himself. “Congratulations, Elias. You can differentiate your hues. Anything else to add?”

“What did you do!?”

“I told you to figure it out. It’s really not that complicated.”

It must not have been a dream.

Shit.

\---

Like a disembodied passenger, Elias found himself dragged along wherever this invader decided to pilot him to. 

That voice in his head wasn’t James Wright. In that nightmare—no, during that ritual, he’d called himself Jonah Magnus.

Elias had his conspiracy theories about the Institute, but he kicked himself for not ever considering it was haunted by the original Victorian tit who established the place. Who cared about ghost possessions when the artifact storage had more real, interesting, tangible horrors?

Jonah had called in sick shortly after their conversation in the mirror. If Elias needed further proof that this was a real and terrible monster that he couldn’t make up himself, it was that this guy performed dark rituals involving scooping eyeballs out on a Thursday night, then proceeded to spend the Friday off doing a spring cleaning of his new host’s flat.

Elias finally piped up as Jonah was emptying the closet of all his clothes. “Are you the ghost of housekeeping? Do you need to clean a thousand houses before you can move on?”

A sigh. “I’m not a ghost; that requires dying first.” Jonah folded a pair of trousers up before piling them into a laundry basket. “I don’t plan on staying in this sty. It’s time to clean it up, and move in somewhere closer to my institute.”

“You really are married to the job, aren’t you?”

“More than you ever were. Of course, that will change quite shortly.”

Elias made an incredulous gasp. “You’re fucking kidding. I’m being bodysnatched so you can keep running your spook factory.”

“Yes. Does that make you scared?” Jonah asked, his tone more menacing.

It did. Of course, he was scared. He was in a waking nightmare now. But he wasn’t going to admit it to satisfy him. He let his anger shine through the fear. “As soon as I find a way out, you’re dead. I’ll burn down your stupid institute. I’ll stab out these eyes.”

“All empty threats I’ve heard before. Don’t get your hopes up, Elias. Your situation is quite permanent.”

Elias quieted down again after hearing that, falling easily into dissociation, absentmindedly watching himself clean up his home from head to toe. Nearly all of his clothes and belongings were packed away into boxes near his front door. Everything was deep-cleaned, and his hurricane of a documents folder was spread out and organized for the first time in years. He heard an audible scoff as Jonah found old tax returns in between pages of dental records.

The only sound Elias made the rest of the day was a seething “FUCK YOU.” Yelled into their shared mindspace when Jonah flushed his pot stash down the toilet. He could _feel_ Jonah smirking.

\---

In two week’s time, Elias Bouchard had moved out of his flat and settled into a lovely condo about a ten minute walk from the institute, as well as gotten settled into his own personal private office in his new position as Head of the Magnus Institute. Jonah’s feigned surprise at hearing of Wright’s sudden passing was almost painful to listen to; even worse was his practiced reaction to hearing that he was promoted to take over his vacant position.

Every one of the other workers gave hard suspicious looks. They all knew he wasn’t right. _Elias Bouchard?_ Really? But the air of something bad afoot was just as strong as their suspicion. They all looked on edge, like addressing the elephant in the room would have them instantly crushed.

Gertrude Robinson didn’t look afraid, of course. She wasn’t afraid of anything. He watched as she seemed to try and calculate and solve the mystery in front of her, practically dissecting Elias with her eyes. Elias did his best to metaphorically bang on the walls of his prison. Give her any indication to confirm her suspicions. Willed himself harder than ever to do _anything_.

“I’m in here! It’s Jonah Magnus! Just kill this stupid bastard!” He yelled out. While he couldn’t break through, he did feel Jonah frown in irritation.

“Something wrong, _Elias?_ ” She asked, a sneer put into his name. Yes, yes! She caught on, hadn’t she?

“It’s… nothing. Just a migraine coming on. This is a large adjustment for me.” Jonah said.

“Mmm. I can only imagine. But surely, you’ll have no issue filling Wright’s shoes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some statements to archive.” She said, standing up and turning to leave his office.

As the door clicked shut, and the sound of the Archivist’s footsteps faded out, Jonah picked up the stack of papers to his right, and straightened them out. Elias noticed the gesture whenever his patience seemed to run thin.

“I told you before, there’s no saving you. There’s no point in shouting like a child.” Jonah said. His tone was even, though he could tell that he was trying to hide his frustration. “Accept your fate. Don’t make this harder for yourself.”

“If you don’t like my attitude towards this situation, then give me my fucking body back, Magnus.”

“This isn’t negotiable. If you keep on like this, I can make it worse for you.” Jonah growled.

“Is that a bet, you tit?”

An exasperated sigh, followed by a short pause. “You’re such a lonely man. Always tried your hardest to finally be noticed, to no success. You just wanted anyone to be proud of you, right? But your university professors barely took note of you, gave you mediocre grades that weren’t even bad enough to bring attention to. When you moved out from your parent's house, they never even called. It was like they never noticed you leave. They were happy to wash their hands of you.” He said. Suddenly, Elias was somewhere else. He swam in his memories, where he felt invisible, where everyone turned their backs on him. “I’m sure The Forsaken would have pulled you in easily, if you didn’t stumble into the Institute’s domain. But even here, where colleagues bond under the shared experiences of a job they’re trapped in, they all still held some contempt for you. They only made note of you when you did something wrong. It was the only way you knew how to get people to see you.”

If he had control of his lungs, he’d have held his breath in anguish. Jonah continued. “You remained unnoticed, and when your presence was noted by anyone, it was in a silent wish that you’d just disappear already. Don’t kid yourself, Elias Bouchard. You were nobody before, and you are nobody now. Nothing has changed, now play your part and _shut it._ ”

After a minute of silence, Jonah carried on with his paperwork.

Until a full hour had passed, at least.

“You’re right, you did make it much worse. That was awful.” Elias said, once he had recovered. Jonah raised his eyebrow, listening in to the voice in his head. “Do you have more where that came from?"

\---

The problem with inflicting the worst of someone’s psyche onto them, is that it can’t get worse from there. Elias was hurt immensely by knowing how truly unwanted he was in his life, but as much as he was trapped in a nightmare for the rest of his days, the nightmare was also trapped with him. And evidently, Jonah couldn’t mute him out.

It wasn’t easy to get a rise out of Jonah, who always made an effort to appear stoic and unaffected. But any mild irritation he managed to sense from the man was enough of a win for Elias.

Jonah chose Elias without giving him a say in the matter. The least he could do was make him regret that choice as much as possible.

When Jonah had his first introduction to one Peter Lukas, Elias didn’t think much of it. As he was gathering his own grasp on the secret workings of the entities controlling the world, he was just disappointed to see many of the powerful figureheads just being weird rich businessmen. Made the whole affair of fear gods a lot duller.

Despite the business cooperation between Jonah and Lukas, there was a clear tension, outlined with something else that Elias couldn’t quite read. Perhaps it was the nature of their faction rivalry. As they sat across from each other, sipping coffee and watching each other like they were waiting for a moment to strike, they struck their first wager. Something about Peter’s ritual plans, and if Gertrude would stop it, or not. Elias wasn’t quite listening to the terms. He was following the eye contact that Jonah was holding so intently, and the eagerness in which he reached out to shake Lukas’ hand with.

“Ah. So you’re interested in the scraggly beard huh? Is that what does it for you?” Elias piped up, just as Jonah sipped on his coffee, causing him to sputter in front of his guest.

He coughed up a lung as Peter watched him, confused. Elias cackled in victory.

“Please excuse me.” Jonah said, trying to regain his composure, now red in the face. “Pleasure to do business with you, Peter. I… look forward to seeing you again soon.”

As soon as Peter left the room—not through the door, mind you. Just up and vanished into thin air—Jonah took a deep breath. “What have I told you about being difficult, Elias?” He said, stern and angry.

“And what have I told _you_? I’m your problem now.”

\---

Before the turn of the century, Elias managed to ruin the mood of four different dates between Jonah and Peter, and even had him annoyed enough through singing (Jonah learned to _despise_ the Goo Goo Dolls after Elias recited the songs enough times) that he’d lose his patience in the middle of meetings. His proudest moment was making Jonah physically jump when he decided to scream at random during a conversation with Gertrude. 

“Does he talk to you in there?” Gertrude asked suddenly.

“No. He just tries to make a nuisance of himself.” Jonah muttered. Gertrude gave a dry laugh to that. “Does his fate surprise you? Upset you?”

“Mmm, no. I never cared much about him.” She said, emotion gone from her words. Elias couldn’t deny that it hurt a little bit to hear her words, until she continued. “But anyone who makes things harder for you earns points in my books. Keep up the good work.”

If Elias still had a face, he’d be beaming with pride. As Gertrude left his office, Jonah inflicted nightmares onto Elias again. It was a shock, but it was nothing new. It was the exact same things that was shown to him the first time Jonah did it, and the venom of it all was lacking. Jonah made the mistake of having nothing left to threaten him with.

“I’ll bite.” Jonah said out loud to the air. “What do you hope to gain out of spiting me?”

“I’ve already gained it, but that’s beside the point.” He said, a few seconds after recovering. “There are some good films out right now that I’d love to see, though.”

A pause. “Are you suggesting—” Jonah began.

“Buy my silence.”

That set him off. Jonah slammed his fist down on his desk. “I don’t negotiate with the vessels I take over, Elias. You are _nothing_.” Jonah seethed.

“Then get rid of me.” Elias said. After a tense silence, he laughed. “Thought so. Now, I think that Star Wars: The Phantom Menace could earn you a week’s worth of peace. And maybe an uninterrupted ‘business meeting’ with Peter. What do you think?”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm mylemonginger on tumblr if you wanna follow me there! Thanks for reading!


End file.
